Converting the game to 1280x720 has opened up more space for information and while that can be great for players it was hard to get the space to look "right". The grey squares are Skills (smaller boxes) and Talents (larger boxes) we do not have art assets for them so I have not placed this screen in the video.

This area is called Head Quarters in Porats Aurora: Arrival it is the normal character sheet from most RPGs. There is a star system map in the window, but players do not normally use it for system interaction and therefore it is a smaller size.

2141 Total plays with 27.60% completing the video. 1918 views being on the Kickstarter site. 223 views from offsite plays. The video went through a lot of changes over the course of the campaign.

While I could do ten entries on all of the things we learned while doing the Kickstarter campaign I will try and sum up the main lessons learned. Lessons to take away from the Kickstarter campaign:
Get the word out that you are going to be launching a Kickstarter before you actually launch it. There is a lot to be said about that first 48 hours of your campaign. It can get you spotlighted if you have some "above average traffic".
Design a few different reward tiers between $10 and $25 because they are the most popular.
The project video needs to show a few key items. First a simple idea that people can catch on to. Second it needs gameplay act or action. Third show the team talking about the project to humanize them to the viewers.
Need to have your video in more places then just Kickstarter. You need eyes on your video is key to making your goal. The more viewers the higher the chance that one will pledge.

If people have more areas of interest just leave a comment and I will expend on them.

Precursor's Dawn - Greenlit! On the morning of Oct 18th, I received the email from Steam informing me that Precursor's Dawn had been Greenlit. Having spend all of the night and some of the morning awake promoting the game did not hear the notification of the email on my phone because I was asleep. However, my teammates were awake for it and began to spam Discord chat. Not seeing me behaving in a similar manner, within the channel, they included my handle every message to ensure I would get the news quickly. After, I think the fifth Discord ping I was up and stung out of bed to my desktop to ensure it wasn't a trick of exhaustion and a small screen. Sure enough the email had come in at 9:39 AM, just a few hours post crash. The smile I had was enormous. The huge green banner with the words we had thought would take months to get were there, "This game has been Greenlit by the Community!"
The Moral Boost that seeing this on our Game Page was unimaginable! We have been working feverishly to ensure we have a stable product for an Early Access Launch. Further updates with address this and look for feedback from anyone that has experience navigating these waters.
We want to thank everyone that stopped by the page, and especially those who voted. GameDev.net was a good source of traffic and feedback. We are thankful for the support this community of developers provided. I will be doing an expended analyst of the Greenlight Campaign. It will highlight what was done right and where we could have improved on. Hopefully, it will be a good resource for anyone gearing up for their own venture into the green light district of Steam.
Our Kickstarter Campaign is Running until Oct 27th, 9:30 PM (EST)
Methods of reaching us: Facebook Twitter YouTube Reddit imgur Kickstarter Steam

[color=rgb(6,35,64)][font='Helvetica Neue']Precursor's Dawn[/font][/color] is a space strategy game unlike anything before. RPG like elements that help to drive a robust and unique gameplay world. You will travel the vast distances of the universe in search of an ancient technology that will ultimately change the balance of power between the known civilizations. Once the technology is found, it is up to you to command, design, and deploy the most powerful fleet to protect the information at all costs. Our unique, combat system lets you summon ships into the battlefield while providing you with a broad overview of the gameboard. Couple this with Co-Op play and head to head multiplayer and you have a game that will leave you satisfied for weeks to come. All of this and more, brought to you using UE4 and AAA technologies.

[indent=5]Visit the Kickstarter Page
You may have seen the banner ad for the game here on GameDev.net. Thank you for white listing this site for your Ad Block.

[color=rgb(6,35,64)][font='Helvetica Neue']Precursor's Dawn is X-COM with Spaceships![/font][/color] [color=rgb(6,35,64)][font='Helvetica Neue']Precursor's Dawn is a turn-based combat system drawing inspiration from Masters of Orion series, Final Fantasy Tactics, Advance Wars, and WarHammer 40k. Keeping these games in mind,[/font][/color] we wanted a game that felt familiar and great to play. What do we mean by that? Precursor's Dawn is more a game of strategy and adapting to your enemy than hoping you have the better roll of the dice or card draw. Furthermore, ships are not locked into a single hex. We wanted the size of the hull to have weight (space joke). When a battleship class moves across the field of combat, it encompasses more real estate than a frigate class. Using larger ships means there is more to shoot at and tactical movement to prevent bottlenecking your fleet's movements. [color=rgb(6,35,64)][font='Helvetica Neue']Too often combat in games boils down to, "Does my Hero/tank/ship have more levels or experience than the enemy?" Precursor's Dawn takes the path less traveled. The decisions you make to the types and load-outs of your ships can vastly alter the way you utilize them. Do you want to play with faster smaller ship, or use indirect fire weapons as you hide behind wreckage? Select the hulls, talents and load outs matching your play-style.[/font][/color] [color=rgb(6,35,64)][font='Helvetica Neue']If you read something that interested you please check out our Kickstarter Page for more information.[/font][/color]

[color=rgb(6,35,64)][font='Helvetica Neue']SOCIAL MEDIA[/font][/color]
[color=rgb(6,35,64)][font='Helvetica Neue']Please, even if you are not looking to pledge, help out a fellow GameDev member and spread the word.[/font][/color]
Facebook /precursorsdawn
Twitter @Precursors_Dawn
Youtube Hostile Viking Studio

I am gearing up to re-launch the Portas Aurora website. The site will not be for the original Portas Aurora: Arrival, but for a new game using the same IP. However, I want to add a more standard forum for the site. I have been looking at using phpBB forum and while it has fairly good reviews I was wondering what other developers were using. Additionally, any ideas or experiences with minimizing spammers are welcomed.

Edit: Simple Machine Forum is another management tool that I have seen rated highly.

Two points of announcement with this Journal entry: First, Hostile Viking Studio is now alive and kicking. Second, we have an amazing teaser for our first game to share.
Travel to a distance galaxy and help shape the balance while avoiding throwing your civilization into chaos. Without further pause, here is the Teaser Trailer for Precursor's Dawn:
Hope you enjoyed this peak into the project, because a flood of content will be emerging over the next couple weeks as the Greenlight campaign goes live. Special thanks you all of those connections during the Kickstarter and now. Comments, and feedback are welcomed!
YouTube Channel: Hostile Viking Studio Twitter: @Precursors_Dawn

After a 3 month break from this site and mostly all game development I have forced myself to return. I commented in my last Journal post, the one before I left, I had been "slammed by the normal things that derail developers," when I made that statement I thought the worst of the misdirection waves were behind me. However, the fact that there zero followup posts should indicate that I was wrong and they were more like pre-quake tremors. Still I am very happy to be back and hope that I can carry on thru the holidays with little to no issues arising.

Recap:
EvE Online Website - I did work on a website Corporate Dissension that worked very closely with the EvE API. It handled Corp Research and Production schedules. Additionally, second business turned up during its development and that quickly overtook the site. The site became a service to scout and buy intel about corporations in the game, mostly focusing on their "in space assets". The site generated over a 1.2 Billion ISK worth of service payments, logged over 850 Billion assets and is credited with the destruction/looting of greater than 39 Billion ISK.
Portas Aurora - The game or micro-sims proved to be fun, but slowed to a crawl due to the lack of massive updates to the shipyard systems. I found that I was busy patching and correcting the economic sim more than anything else. I have suspended the project for now because I want to flush it out more in the areas people were telling me bottle-necked the gameplay.
Portas Aurora: Battleline - Yes, another Portas Aurora title game. I really like the lore that another writer and I have put together and want people to have the chance to experience it as well. After suspended Portas Aurora micro-sim the demands of real world work heated up and as a most developers can understand the need to eat and stay housed are fairly important to game development. Therefore, I starting tinkering with the idea of a game that I could design and develop under the new demands of my work and the idea of a TCG/CCG, Trading Card Game and Collectable Card Game, came up and seemed like the clear winner with the other ideas that were on the table. So off I sat to create Portas Aurora: Battleline. The game is moving along at an "okay" pace I have just under halve of the cards I want to have at launch ready.

I am seriously looking at starting the Vblog for my development as a way to gain addition motivation for completion, but I was wondering if anyone had first hand experience of Mac Screen capture apps that they would share.

As with any system there are keywords that allow more complex ideas or actions to be expressed. The following is a list of the terms for mechanics used in Portas Aurora: Battleline so far:

Active Defense: At the end of your turn repair 1 durability of this unit. Auxiliary Power: Adds extra damage to Maneuvers that deal damage. Charge: Can Attack on First Turn Deployed (Looking for a different Name). Disable: Prevents Ship from Attacking or Defending for 1 turn. First Strike: When this unit attacks its damage is appealed first. If the target is destroyed this unit does not receive targets damage. Hardened: Ignores 1 damage. Immobile: Unit can not move. Indirect Fire: Unit ignores Battleline order when attacking. Intercept: Forces Enemy Units to attack this unit. Jamming: Removes all effects on Target unit. Jump(x): Can move to location within range. Maintenance(X): X is the amount of resource this is reserved for this unit and can't be spent on anything else. Nimble: Ship has 1 movement action. Rapid Fire: Attack Twice Ranged(x): Can Attack without being adjacent. Pierce: Damage above target defense is applied to units behind it. Pursuit: Follows the movement of the enemy unit forward of it. Scout: Can be deployed in either your battleline or Neutral Zone. Stealth: Untargetable until attacks.

Deployment: Action that occurs upon the unit entering battlefield. Final Order: Action that occurs upon the death of the unit.

Today's Progress Chart:

While not a standout day at 4%, 17 cards. I have begun to develop a few more reports to help me find holes in the current cards selection. I have also started to think about lowering the race specific cards from 38 to 34 or 36 and shifted the 14 to 28 card to race neutral to allow for more deck flexibility and diverse game play. Additionally, I have moved a few cards around between races to better fit the current play style layouts. Tomorrow I will be covering the 7 races in the game.

Development: I have created a few tools which I will be expanding in the coming days, that will help me zero into possible missing cards. In Collectable Card Games the Resource curve of both decks and the overall collection is an important component in balance. Therefore, I have added a report to deck construction to help players see this. The current Resource Curve for the card collection is as follows:

While I think the overall curve looks about where it should be I am debating on a focused increase to the number of 7+ cards and pushing the 3 & 4 cost cards to be at the top of the curve. My next tool will be designed to look at Attack vs. Durability of units to see where the current cards are lacking in options.

Check out the fast paced SciFi Tactical Combat game, Precursor's Dawn on Greenlight. Even if this is not a game for you the traffic helps. Votes help the most, but we will be very happy for the traffic. Thank you.
[size=7]Vote for Precursor's Dawn on Greenlight
[size=8]
Additionally, we are on Kickstarter. Thank you again for checking out our post.
* Edit: We have had 258 Yes votes in our first day!

June 15th, I re-launched the PortasAurora.com website. The website is going to be the host for the up coming game under the Portas Aurora IP. [color=#000000][font=Arial]
[background=transparent]Portas Aurora is a throwback to the era of Master of Orion 2. Its a MUD 4X turn-based strategy game set in space. You start off customizing your own race. Once you have created your race research new technologies, explore the galaxy, protect your allies and crush your enemies.[/background][/font][/color] [color=#000000][font=Arial][background=transparent]A web browser is all that's required to play, no downloads required. Do you have what it takes?[/background][/font][/color]

MUD means a Multi-User Domain, the precursor to MMO's.

The game with have the option to play in a single player / small group setting or in the full MUD setting.

Currently the Racial Trait Calculator is up and allows people to play around with different builds. Additionally, it provides a link to return to the build if the Race Summary function is used.

A Simple Machine Forum is up and running for people to post questions, comments and ideas for their builds.

[color=rgb(102,102,102)][font=Helvetica, Arial, 'Liberation Sans', FreeSans, sans-serif]
The Kickstarter project for Portas Aurora: Arrival from September was not a success in terms of raising the capital to help produce the game. However, it was amazing. We received tons of feedback, and met dozens of great people making this last month a successful month. For more information on the data we collected from the Kickstarter project I will be posting another entry.[/font][/color]

[color=rgb(102,102,102)][font=Helvetica, Arial, 'Liberation Sans', FreeSans, sans-serif]The team behind the Portas Aurora project were hit with a large chunk of life after the close of the Kickstarter campaign leading to the game being placed on the back burner. We had discussed other opinions to continue the development of Portas Aurora: Arrival and we are not wanting to let the project fall by the waste side. With the new year the remaining members of the team looked to pick Portas Aurora backup only to discover a massive amount of assets had been lost or destroyed between multiple moves. Even with multiple copies and backup the game as it was is a shell. The team has joked that it is not a over huge lost because many of the comments we received targeted at the graphics were that they were sub-par and needed to be reworked leaving us with a clean slate.[/font][/color] [color=rgb(102,102,102)][font=Helvetica, Arial, 'Liberation Sans', FreeSans, sans-serif]If you have have some ideas, we would enjoy hearing them.[/font][/color] [color=rgb(102,102,102)][font=Helvetica, Arial, 'Liberation Sans', FreeSans, sans-serif]Thank you.[/font][/color]

I have seen a few people start video blogs or VBLOGs covering the development of their projects. While I have thought of doing this before I was wondering if there was really and following behind this type of VBLOG? If so are there any prime examples? As I said I have thought of doing one before it would be mostly talking about the development of the game with game test and code editing in the video with me and the other developer talking about the game. Hype and following behind a project, in addition to monetary compensation, help to motive developers. At least it is a form of motivation for me. The more people have seen the project and commented means that there are more people that want to see it complete.

If anyone is up for sharing some insight, thank you in advance.

As for the status of the Portas Aurora project, I have been working on the economy simulator. However, after a few minutes of writing code I realized that I would need to divide the code into 2 Sims. The first one simulating the economy of planets and a second one encapsulating the first simulating the economy of the player's empire. I hope to have a post about the Economy SIMs in the next 2 days.

My last post, check it out, talked about the process leading to the creation of Battleline's Demo. Now 12 days into the Demo's development it has finally arrived at a point where, I believe, it is visually shareable. The included Screenshot is of a game during the player's side of turn 6. The graphics are ALL placeholders with the white blocks being the target of future art assets. While I could talk about all of the things going on in the displayed image, I believe fellow developers would like to hear about some learning points that came up along the route to this point.

The planning period for the Demo took a full day. We, the team behind the project, have learned that it is often the case that 1 minute of planning saves 10 fold as much time in headaches and lost focus later. One point that came up a lot during the planning was the idea that images even placeholders would gate development. This did become a fact at a few points along the path to the Demo's current state. How and where the stat data for units would be stored effected more than a handful of decisions on how information would need to be handled. We were lucky that there was a cache of 300 cards to draw from for the testing. The graphic problem was a bit worst that "normal" due to the idea that the images used would have dynamic base images that would allow the demo to assemble the unit's image from data within the current game. The first version of the Token, the term we use for the unit on the battlefield, took about 6 hours. That is a lot for something that looks close to the level of MS paint. The key time saver came when we start tying more elements within the game together. A unit's stats could be changed and the image changed, not to another one from a library, but the core image. It also allowed us to play with size and spacing at an accelerated pace.

A second large point that may have cost us a day or even 2 was the decision to try and modify the prototype code of the Demo into the final version. There was a fair amount of back and forth, and in the end some hoped it would allow us to see more results sooner. Sometimes this can be a good idea, especially for teams that have worked on projects of similar types before. However, we have never developed a CCG and some of the crazy pitfalls that come along dealing with how cards that generate or use other cards throw some of the prototype's basic structure into a fire that consumer it. Currently 95% of the prototype's code has been replaced with updated and tighter fitting solutions.

If the last 12 days had to be done over, I would do a few things different. First I would spend maybe another day planning the timeline between art assets that would act as time gates and have them knocked out ahead of when they would limit development, Second the decision after the prototype was deemed complete to continue used that code base for the production version, I feel was a mistake. Still hindsight being 20/20 I think 12 days is fairly fast for the current state of the Demo, but I will see what the community thinks.

[media]
[/media] Thank you to everyone that gave feedback or asked questions. If you liked the new Trailer and want to know more about Portas Aurora: Arrival Check out our Kickstarter Page In addition if you have feedback for this video or the Kickstarter Page we would be happy to hear it.

I really did not realize how much people were turned off by the first combat series. I will be cutting it and replacing with an HD version.

The video still needs a better introduction and a way to link the Galactic Senate to the "Blue Assembly of Triangles".

EDIT: Updated after a few comments both from GameDev.net and other places.

While I was slated to post an entry covering the Economic Simulation within Portas Aurora three weeks ago, I have been slammed by the normal things that derail developers. I am now finalizing an entry detailing the Economic Micro Sim. This particular micro sim was more complex then originally envisioned mostly due to a desire to include information not stored, but generated by other micro sims. I will expand on this in the actual post.

A note from a previous entry about Vblogs I believe going forward with this would be a good idea both due to the posted reasons and the idea that the Vblog would require me to create content on a more schedule cycle.

Furthermore, I have been modifying one of the micro sim for Portas Aurora to handle POS installation management of Eve Online. It have tested some of the extreme features that I had planned, but required a few days to learn how to use the Eve Online API. I am a huge SciFi fan and I enjoy Eve Online and thought that a tool like this could aid in making a POS more profitable and allow corpations to pool their collective skills more effectively. If anyone is interested in seeing it I will be opening it up for more public testing early next week. If it is popular I will add a minor journal section to cover its development. Additionally, if people have advise for working with the Eve Online API I am all ears. :)

[media]
[/media] Any feedback people can provide would be great. This is my first Dev video and I have zero illusion that I would be good the first time out. A couple people said that the introduction area of the video was dull and too long. I was thinking that because the meat of the video was viewable within 10 seconds that I was okay. Let me know what you think of the video. I have fairly thick skin and would rather have people tell me now what I am doing wrong or what I could do better. Thank you.

[media]
[/media] Looking for evaluation and feedback of the video. Some questions:
Was the video too long?
Was there enough game play?
Was the game play that you wanted to see?
Was there missing information?

[media]
[/media] A few people have asked about the differences between Ship Hull Classes. Therefore, I have made a video outlining some of the differences between the Scout and Frigate Hull Classes. I hope the video can clear some of these questions. However, if they create a few more that is great too.

Last night we welcomed Linux to the list of supported Platforms for Portas Aurora: Arrival. Hope this allows more people to enjoy the game. Portas Aurora: Arrival. Check us out on Kickstarter: http://kck.st/PBGcQK For more information check the game out at: http://www.portasaurora.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PortasAurora Follow the game's development on Twitter: @PortasAurora

GameDev.net's community was an amazing help during my first Kickstarter, therefore I am hoping we have even better results this time around by getting the community involved before the launch.
Kickstarter Preview Page
Any feedback you have would be wonderful and very help. You can leave comments here, on the preview page, or contact me directly. Thank you in advance.

The newest feature of Portas Aurora is the Planet Surface resource Display. Currently it is still in the early stage of development and getting needed data is more important than look at this moment. Each planet's surface is divided into 16 tiles and their individual levels are display. The idea is to show the 100% baseline production.

Jigster started out as a Mobile App that I helped the creators re-invite and over the last 2 years it has gone through an untold number of changes, both in the front and backend. Near the end of last year the idea of bring the game to the desktop world was talked about. Within a short order, the game was in prototype phase. We understood that for the desktop market Jigster's gameplay would need to expand and allow more flexibility to players.
During the Holiday season I was able to show off the early gameplay of Jigster to friends and family, which gave us ideas on some of the details players would enjoy. The result is seen in this screenshot of Stage 1 of Jigster.
Now that we felt the UI held all of the elements it would need we expanded our reach of feedback to other professions in the game dev field. We were mostly focused on getting the UI to feel right, and reflect a higher level of polish. This was Stage 2 of Jigster.
Believing that we had a solid product, Jigster went to Steam Greenlight to collect customer feedback. The campaign began mid-February and the first 8 hours were brutal. Only a single positive comment was written and that by a friend. We collected only 31 Yes votes and 203 No votes in 4 days, the writing was on the wall. At this point we could have easily thrown our hands in the air and stated this idea was a failure and moved on, but we decided to take the Greenlight campaign down and really study the comments and present the game to more people to get even more feedback. It is never fun to hear bad things about your game, but the constructive critiques we paid a ton of attention to. Jigster had launched in the Greenlight work without a unique hook, people had dog-piled on the idea that square puzzle pieces made the game too easy or that we were lazy developers with little knowledge.
We returned to the "drawing board" and took a hard look at the game. Being surrounded by a project can often lead to tunnel vision, and I believe to some effect we had fallen prey to this. Our first thought was that lower piece counts were not engaging enough for players, because they could be busted in 5 seconds or less (actual times). The next game mode to be added was Speed Run, where a player has set amount of time to bust unto 5 jigs in a row. The thinking was even at low piece counts the player wouldn't get bored as quickly due to the steam of new puzzles. The current 4 game modes were mostly targeted at timers and thou they did add challenge to the game, they didn't alter the basic idea of assembling a photo from small pieces. Now with Speed Run, which could be seen as a fifth timer mode, we wanted something that mixed things up, and boom Double Trouble was born. The game mode takes 2 image and mixes the tiles up, we liked to joke that the idea came from a mother, that will not be named, attempting to save space combining 2, 500+ piece jigsaw, puzzles into the same box.
With new game modes, we returned for new feedback for the UI and found people mostly saw it as a mobile game. We knew this would require another overhaul of the UI to move it more towards a desktop design. This was one of our more radical redesigns, as we were placing tons of information into a smaller space, but we didn't want it to feel smashed. Stage 4 of Jigster for Desktop.
Now that Stage 4 of Jigster for Desktop ready, we created new screenshots and a 2 new videos, 1 solely for showing off the Speed Run game mode. With this fresh look and new content we decided to re-attempt Steam Greenlight. If you would like to check out the game more you can click the Greenlight banner here:
The campaign has gone much better than the first attempt and we are continuing to improve the game as can be seen here in the Stage 5 screenshot.
With a release of a Demo for both Mac and Windows tomorrow we are hoping to making it through the Greenlight process. Additionally, we are still taking in feedback and comments.

First I would like to thank everyone that watched my video and special thanks to the people that gave me feedback. I am going to list some of the some of the lessons I learned from doing my first Dev in hopes that other developers can catch similar issues and have better videos their first time out.
Do not start your video with a vague intro
State the Game you are going to be talking about
Introduce the game in a short elevator pitch style
Focus on a single area that you want to talk about
Move slowly through the video

Now to explain each point. Lesson 1 I starter my video with my company logo fading into a title screen for the game. I did not speak and there was zero sound.

Why this is bad. I got a few comments that people thought there was going to be no sound and almost stopped watching. For video and especially YouTube video people want to feel hooked in the first 10 seconds if not sooner. My video's first 8 seconds were silence and not that inviting.

Lesson 2 While I had a title screen this does not equal a connection between the video and the game it is related to.

Why this is bad. I received more then a few comments asking what game this video was talking about. Proving that stating the name of the game with sound has far more impact than simple words scrolling across the screen. Plus saying it reinforces the name in the viewer's mind.

Lesson 3 I failed to really introduce the game, the play style, or the objective of the video.

Why this is bad. In similar fashion to Lesson 2 people had a hard time understand what game I was talking about and what I was trying to show about the game. Thank you for the viewers that watched the video multiple times to try and gain additional insight. A game's introduction should be 10-30 seconds in length and allow the viewer to have some basic foundation information about the game before moving on to more detail features.

Lesson 4 Originally I thought I was focused on a single area of Portas Aurora: Arrival. I was going to show people the beginning of a game.

Why this is bad. I introduced a half dozen complex features of the game and if I gave then any time in the spot light I did little to explain them. I think this was mostly due to a case of tunnel vision. I have been playing with the game for over 6 months and things like building a fleet are easy to me. However, for someone seeing the game for the first time it could be very confusing.

Lesson 5 This is partly connected to lesson 4 in the sense that I rushed through features and only gave a second or two for the view to see what I was talking about before I was off on to a different feature or screen.

In conclusion, I liked all of the feedback I received. I say that because even the people that told me the video was "bad" at least told me what turned them off from the video.